The disclosure relates generally to display technologies, and more particularly, to driving of display panel.
Display resolution is limited by the physical size of a display panel in each of the width dimension (i.e., in the row/horizontal direction) and the height dimension (i.e., in the column/vertical direction), as well as the minimum pattern size of fabricating the components on the display panel in each dimension. Depending on the ratio of subpixels to pixels, known display systems can have a very large number of source lines (a.k.a. data lines) arranged in the row direction, which can increase the manufacturing complexity and cost. For example, a wide quad high-definition (WQHD) display panel (e.g., resolution is 1440×2560) with the real-RGB subpixel arrangement (the ratio is 3), the number of the source lines may be 4320. Moreover, it became increasingly desirable to narrow the bezel surrounding the display panel, allowing for more screen area. The very large number of gate lines (a.k.a. scan lines) and the corresponding driving circuits for high resolution displays, however, limit the narrow-bezel or bezel-less designs.
The large number of source lines and/or gate lines is particularly a challenge for flexible displays. For example, flexible organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays are usually manufactured using chip-on-film (COF) package. For example, due to the limit on film pitch of COF package, multiple-layer COF package becomes necessary to accommodate the large number of source lines (e.g., 4320 for WQHD display panels), which can significantly increase the cost of flexible OLED displays.